


A Falling Star

by brevitas



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, paranormal themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:17:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brevitas/pseuds/brevitas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hardest part is watching them get older, and knowing the moment their death has been decided.</p><p>In which Enjolras is an ageless reaper and Grantaire the mortal he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Falling Star

_It's hard_ , he thinks sometimes, when he is alone in the house and the sun is spreading inquisitive fingers through the cracks of their curtains, _To love such a wild thing_.

On the days like this, when Grantaire wakes up alone and falls asleep alone, the impossibility is almost suffocating. It is not Enjolras' fault but Grantaire hates him for it nonetheless. He drinks because his fingers are restless and his joints ache; he feels too big on these days, too stretched out to fit properly in his body.

The alcohol numbs the misery on these lonely afternoons, and makes it more bearable to do the mundane things that Enjolras is not a part of. The laundry is completed methodically; grocery shopping is done with grit teeth and white knuckles.

It is only when Enjolras comes home that Grantaire can smile, though sometimes when he's gone for many days it takes just as long to thaw Grantaire's blue eyes.

Frequently Grantaire is roused from sleep by the quiet _nick_ of the front door closing and he sits up in bed, the sheets pooling around his lap. Enjolras toes his shoes off in the hallway and his approach is effortlessly silent; his pallid feet whisper where they touch the floorboards, and for him the spot that stubbornly creaks remains quiet.

"Grantaire?" He always asks the dark rather than the man, poises on his toes in the doorway. He doesn't turn the lights on; he doesn't need to. Sometimes the light from the alarm clock will catch in his pupils and they dilate wildly, swallowing the cerulean of his irises.

And Grantaire sighs and scoots over, allowing Enjolras in bed. He smells wild these nights, like earth and blood and sky and pain, but Grantaire does not mind it; Enjolras sets a hand on him under the blankets and traces every route he's ever taken across his skin, chasing memories with velveteen fingertips. Grantaire allows it because he loves, so deeply and passionately and painfully, and lays in the silence and listens to Enjolras breathe.

It is only in the morning that Grantaire will ask how his day went, for these are not matters to be spoken of in the dark. Enjolras sits at the breakfast counter and Grantaire passes him buttered toast, which he obligingly picks up.

"How many?" He asks as he comes to sit opposite him, cradling a cup of coffee between his palms. Enjolras knows there is liquor settled at the bottom but says nothing of it.

"Only a few," Enjolras replies, licking crumbs off his hands. "And none that were intolerable."

They will shower together afterward and Enjolras will insist on washing Grantaire himself; he used to complain but withstands it willingly now, for there is rapture in Enjolras' eyes when he skims soap down the line of Grantaire's ribs and he will not take that from a man who has lost so much.

The remainder of the day will be quiet, and lazy. Neither need words to say what needs to be said; Enjolras will catch up on the episodes he missed in his absence and pillow his head in Grantaire's lap and Grantaire will brush out his hair with his fingers, twining the golden locks around his knuckles like a spool of thread.

Sometimes it takes a few hours for Enjolras to start talking, and sometimes it takes no time at all. In the middle of How I Met Your Mother he says, "The first one was only nine."

Grantaire is silent, because by now he knows what Enjolras needs, and it is not his empty pity. He continues stroking his scalp and Enjolras talks like he can't stop, like a man begging for salvation. "She got hit by a car--died on impact, and you know how the violent deaths are." He takes a shaky breath and says, "She was crying, and kept trying to touch the onlookers. When I got there she was so excited that I could hear her; she kept asking, Where's my mom? Does she know I'm hurt? I think she needs to be here."

He exhales through his nose and the laugh track on the television is obscene paired with Enjolras' whispered confessions. "It's supposed to get easier," he says, and shakes his head. "They said that one day, all of you mortals would be the same to me; I wouldn't care about names anymore, or birthdays, or the family they leave behind."

Grantaire snorts and tugs his hair back from Enjolras' forehead, so he can see the reaper's eyes. "Enjolras," he says firmly, and waits until he looks up. "No matter how long you do this for, you'll never be like them."

Neither of them say anything more about it but over the course of the evening Enjolras quietly says little facts about those that he took today; "Denise's favorite color was purple," he says about the sweater Grantaire pulls on to take the trash outside. "Robert was allergic to milk," to the glass Grantaire pours him to complement his Oreos.

He leaves in the middle of the night as he is wont to do, expected to be at work the next morning. Grantaire has never asked him about it past the basics; he knows that wherever they officially live exists on a realm parallel to his own and that the souls of humans cannot tread there (he has never asked what happens when they do and most especially pretends that it's never occurred to him to wonder what that makes Enjolras).

They have a system now, and for the most part it works. Grantaire has been with him for eight years and he should get used to the emptiness already but he doesn't; he blares the radio in the evenings while he cooks and sings along to the contemporary pop songs he hates. His friends come over sometimes; they're all men he trusts with his life and they know who, and what, Enjolras is, so he doesn't worry that he might show up unannounced and scare them half to death.

(It should be noted that the first time Enjolras rose out of the floor from a puddle of iridescent oil that Grantaire did not take it very well either. He uses the front door now, like a gentleman.)

He watches movies to pass the time, sends stories into the gossip columns in the local newspaper. Courfeyrac and Jehan will come over with their little boy and Grantaire will babysit. He thinks about children sometimes but not often; the drink is too big a part of his life, and he's still unused to the idea that he will age and Enjolras will not.

The years go by, as they are liable to do. Grantaire gets older; he stops boxing at forty two, when he suffers a terrible spinal injury and the doctors are worried he may never walk again. He will not forget the way Enjolras' face looked when he thundered into the emergency room, a wonder to behold; the humans, who did not know what he was, who could not possibly understand, scattered in front of him like leaves to a storm.

He'd grasped Grantaire so tightly that he'd left bruises in his wake and said, "Don't scare me like that," and his eyes had been so black and inhuman that Grantaire had looked away and promised he wouldn't.

Obviously he's fine and a surgery corrects it, but Grantaire never returns to the ring again.

His fiftieth birthday is a small celebration, and he has fine touches of gray weaved throughout his black hair. Enjolras has memorized where they are; he'll lay with his eyes closed and his cheek pressed to Grantaire's shoulder and he'll touch them, straighten the curl from root to tip, and he'll think, _He's getting old_ , but he doesn't say it.

Enjolras barely looks twenty five. Grantaire spares himself the trouble and only invites his good friends to the party so at least when they look between them there's pity and not confusion.

Grantaire paints still, and drinks with a wanton abandonment. Enjolras has no right to but one night he begs him to stop; it's barely more than a whisper, torn from his throat by desperation. Grantaire is quiet but the next morning he dumps the liquor down the drain.

(The shakes are terrible, and he becomes horrendously sick; Enjolras can taste his impending death in the back of his throat and brings him a whiskey bottle two days in. Grantaire gets better, and Enjolras no longer condemns him for his addiction.)

At fifty three Grantaire is no less fierce; he still uses bold colors in his pieces and sells them to local markets. They don't need the money, but Enjolras asks him to do it anyway (he likes the idea of Grantaire's work hanging in someone's living room, with pillows to match). His hair is completely gray now and his gaze heavy, but he still holds Enjolras' hand when he comes home and he still lets the reaper explore every inch of him on the days that are the hardest.

One morning Enjolras wakes up and tightens his fingers in the sheets, for it is what he has been dreading for the past thirty three years. He rolls onto his side and pushes the blankets back with his feet, baring Grantaire to the air. Goosebumps shiver across his back and he shudders but doesn't wake; Enjolras splays his palms on his hip and shoulder and kisses him, on every patch of skin he can ever remember kissing.

He wakes muddled and warm, curling his toes when he turns his head and Enjolras kisses him soundly on the mouth. "What is it?" He asks, muffled, half of his face still smashed into the pillow.

"Nothing," Enjolras says quietly, and slides his fingers through his hair, and manages a smile. "Nothing at all."

Enjolras doesn't go into work, and Grantaire notices immediately. He watches him curiously and waits as the blonde prepares breakfast for them, wearing only pajama pants tied loosely at his waist. Grantaire admires his body freely; he is as lithe as a dancer and stunningly beautiful even like this, his hair mussed from sleep, his eyes dark and smudged underneath from something that is taxing him. Grantaire figures he took someone's life yesterday that he did not agree with but does not ask, for that is an unspoken rule in their household and after three decades he is not likely to break it.

Grantaire paints all afternoon and Enjolras sits at his feet, reading on the floor. He's quiet but touches him obsessively; the heel of his hand brushes the top of his foot, or his shoulder reflexively bumps against his knee. Grantaire knows something is wrong but he does not ask (for perhaps he knows the answer, and nobody wants to say it out loud).

Dinner is happy, and they laugh until they cry. Grantaire cups Enjolras' face in his hands and tells him he loves him; Enjolras smiles, but his heart is breaking. They watch movies until bedtime, and it is only then, swaddled in the dark, when Grantaire has the courage to ask, "How long?"

Enjolras is quiet; the words are like lead in his mouth. "A few hours," he says. 2 hours, 34 minutes, 28 seconds. "I'm sorry."

Grantaire curls into his side with a sigh, and wraps his arms around his waist. "Probably all the alcohol," he muses, and it startles a laugh from Enjolras. He smiles into his throat and says, "I'm sorry too."

Grantaire stays up as long as he can but his death is marked, and this one cannot be neatly sidestepped. He falls asleep eventually, his organs shutting down one by one, his breath rattling in his chest. Enjolras stays with him and holds his hand, but cannot find a single thing beautiful about his death; it's so soft, and quiet, and nothing like Grantaire was in life.

Enjolras lets go, and the pale green light of the alarm clock is reflected in his tears.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a one-shot so what you see is what you get.  
> and also I have no idea where this came from, but I hope you like it? 
> 
> title comes from this quote by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross:  
> "Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever."
> 
> tumblr is idfaciendumest so come talk to me! :)


End file.
